The idea that the Moon landings were faked is based in part on shallow knowledge of the historical period. This chapter provides some background for anyone who might need it.

If you experienced the 1960s personally, you can probably skip to the next chapter because you remember the period quite well, but you might still find this chapter useful as a quick refresher on the early years of space exploration.

If you weren’t alive during those extraordinary years or were too young to remember them, brace yourself for surprises. You missed out on a period of giant leaps in technology and science, not only in the aerospace sector, which changed forever the way the universe was seen and understood, at least by people who were willing to open their eyes, while blinkered and temporary despots inflicted unspeakable suffering on the inhabitants of this tiny grain of sand suspended in the velvet blackness of the cosmos. Those were years when everything seemed possible and what was incredible became achievable.